Dear John
by kototyph
Summary: "I've got three years of danger pay, I'm fucking sick of those barrack bunks and Sam won't let me space-freight his kids a pony," Dean says. "Fuck yes, I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton. And so are you."


**Title: **Dear John  
**Pairing(s): **Dean/Benny  
**Rating: **R  
**Length: **~3.5k  
**Genre(s): **Alternate Universe - Future/Science Fiction, Space Soldiers on Leave (and Behaving Badly), Swearing, Lots of Swearing, Crack, Teeny-Tiny Bit of Angst, Drunkenness, Drunken Confessions, Hugs, Cuddling & Snuggling, Dirty Talk, Shower Groping, Bathing/Washing  
**Summary: **

"Wait a minute," Benny says slowly, looking harder at the display. "You're— holy Christ, you're staying at the _Ritz-Carlton_?"**  
**

_"I've got three years of danger pay, I'm fucking sick of those barrack bunks and Sam won't let me space-freight his kids a pony," _Dean says. _"Fuck yes, I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton. And so are you."_

* * *

Dean picks up on the last beat of the fourth ring, Benny's thumb already hovering over the disconnect button when he sees blurred movement on the screen, hears Dean yell out, "_Huggybear? That you?" _

Benny lets out a long, slow breath, sagging back in his seat. He manages a weak half-grin as he brings the phone closer to his face. "You go around calling anybody else huggybear, brother, you might just break my heart."

There's a confusion of light and movement around Dean, a roar of voices and a driving tonal beat that might qualify as music on some planets— not the one they're currently on, hell no, but it reminds Benny of shore leave in Sirius. Somewhere in that star system, anyway. Dean's laughing like a lunatic, bent over what is probably a bar in some ritzy part of the city. "_You're my one and only, I promise_," he shouts, ducking his head further as he breaks off into almost-hysterical giggles. It's barely twenty-one hundred and he's absolutely trashed, not that Benny expected anything less.

Dean lifts his head and yells something cheerful to the person next to him. The video wobbles, rotates and Castiel's face swims briefly into view, mellow smile the only sign he might be just as intoxicated. He salutes Benny with something blue and fizzing before the video swings back to Dean, feed moving erratically as the man slips off his bar stool and plunges into a mass of writhing bodies.

_"Taking this outside," _he yells, most of the screen just his mouth moving. "_Can barely hear my huggybear!"_

"Stow it already, you drunk fuck," Benny says fondly, and Dean makes loud kissy noises against the receiver.

"_Hey, man, I mean it,"_ he says, just as he breaks through the crowd and outside. The video flips, spins wildly as he turns in place to give Benny a panoramic view: stars, balcony, dazzling skyline and in the distance, what might be fireworks.

_"This place is fucking amazing!" _Dean crows, holding up the phone to his face again. "_Bet you're sorry you skipped on us now."_

"Yeah, well," Benny says with a rueful smile, plucking a stray petal from his pant leg. The splashy off-planet bouquet he'd splurged on is still laying across his lap, a little tattered and wilting badly now. He picks it up by the stems and tosses it into the backseat.

"_Seriously," _Dean says more softly. _"Benny, my man, you should be here."_

Benny shrugs. "Maybe, but_ you_ should be sick of my ugly mug. God knows I'm sick of yours."

_"Now, that hurts. I love you, man_," Dean says, with the wide-eyed sincerity of the completely wasted. _"I would die for you. Wait, didn't I? I think I did, on Tau Ceti."_

Benny remembers, with a grim kind of humor that might be unique to their profession. "That was _maybe_ thirty seconds. Your heart started again before you'd even pissed your grav-boots."

_"I still died for you," _Dean says insistently. "_That's totally love."_

Now Benny laughs outright. "I'm teary-eyed, brother." And Christ, he actually is, and he looks away from the screen to hastily knuckle the moisture away.

"_You should be_," Dean says very seriously. "_You should be, like, fucking awed by the depth of my feelings for you."_

"I'm all a-tingle," Benny drawls, and hell, enough of this pity-party. He sets the phone in its cradle on the dash and starts the car. It coughs and sputters a bit before rising and he gives the dash a disgusted smack; years in storage doing nothing and the damn thing sounds ready to die on him after ten clicks.

"_You talk a tough game, Benny_," Dean's saying, video turning with him as he leans against the railing. Sky traffic rockets past him like shooting stars, neon bright against the city night. _"But we've been living in each other's asses for three fucking years, and you couldn't wait three _hours _dirtside before you had to talk to me again." _He shakes his head._ "That is some sad shit right there."_

"You're telling me," Benny says, popping the car in gear.

_" And what about your ladylove? I thought you had, you know. _Plans." Dean's eyebrows give a lascivious wiggle.

"I did," Benny says, merging into traffic towards the city. "And now I don't."

"_What, she bailed?"_

Benny looks away from the phone, eyes scanning the street he's turning on. "You ever get a Dear John letter delivered in person, Dean?"

On screen, Dean straightens. "_No fucking way."_

"Woulda made a good soap opera scene," Benny says, smiling a little. "Got her flowers, some fancy wine and crackers and shit they sell in those baskets at the station hub. I figure, show up, surprise her, have a hell of a first night back, right?"

"_And she just—?" _

"Her boyfriend answered the door," Benny says wryly. "It kinda went downhill from there."

"_Tell me you kicked his fucking teeth in!" _Dean snarls.

"Ain't his fault, brother," Benny sighs. "Not really her fault, either. Three years is a long time."

"_Well, fuck that out an airlock,_" Dean snaps. "_I'll get Cas, he'll know where Meg and Balthazar are—"_

"No, don't. Don't. It's not worth bothering anyone about," Benny says. He doesn't feel fit for company, to be honest. He's just— tired. Embarrassed. A little maudlin, a little heartsick. Not as much as he'd thought he'd be— it _has _been three years since he's seen her, after all. But the disappointment is keen, and so is the tiny voice whispering _idiot, idiot, such a pathetic fucking idiot_. He just wants to lick his wounds in peace.

"I'm just gonna go back, crash at base temp housing," he decides out loud, switching lanes. "I'll try and find a better place tomorrow."

"_Shut up,"_ Dean orders, poking the screen, eyes flicking back and forth over text Benny can't see from his side. "_I'm sending you directions to my hotel." _

"Dean," Benny starts, exasperated. "I really just—"

"_Huggybear,_" Dean says in the same tone, mocking him. "_Don't make me come get you. You know I will."_

The phone chirps, and the GPS flickers to life on Benny's dash. He lets out a long, gusty sigh and reluctantly reaches up to tap the 'Drive Me' option. The car grinds noisily into autopilot.

"_There, was that so hard?" _Dean says, but something about the address is catching Benny's eye.

"Wait a minute," he says slowly, looking harder at the display. "You're— holy Christ, you're staying at the _Ritz-Carlton_?"

"_I've got three years of danger pay, I'm fucking sick of those barrack bunks and Sam won't let me space-freight his kids a pony,_" Dean says. _"Fuck yes, I'm staying at the Ritz-Carlton. And so are you."_

* * *

Because the man thinks he's God's gift to women, men, and everything in between, Dean answers the door in nothing but a coy smile and fleet-issue boxers, sweat gleaming on his chest and forehead. His dulcet, "I got us the honeymoon suite, baby," seems to scandalize the droid who's carried Benny's seabag and wine basket all the way up to the top floor. It whirrs and clucks disapprovingly as it shuts the door behind itself, and Benny hands over the drooping bouquet with an elaborate flourish.

Dean bats his eyelashes in a way his drunk ass probably thinks is alluring. "For me?" he coos.

Benny gives him an easy grin. "You got a concussion, _cher_? Something in your eye?"

Dean laughs and flips him off on his way to the sink at the minibar. "No, but I've got beer, Centauri beer, vodka, whiskey, and real cigars," he says, turning on the tap and dropping the flowers right in. "None of that synth-shit. Some leftover Water of Vega, too, if you wanna permanently erase the last twenty-four hours."

"Beer me," Benny decides, and sinks into one of the ridiculously low, plush couches that frames the fireplace— a fucking fireplace, _why._

Dean tucks the ice-cold bottle into the curve of Benny's neck, but then he trips over his own feet dancing back from Benny's quick swing and falls flat on his face. _"_Fucking _ow_."

"Karma's a bitch, brother," Benny says, tipping his beer to him as he swears and rolls over onto his back, rubbing at his elbow.

"Asshat. Hey… what's all in this thing, anyway?" Dean asks, pulling the gift basket closer to his prone position.

It's on the tip of Benny's tongue to suggest tipping it into the incinerator unopened, because just looking at it stings a bit. Pathetic. Instead, he takes a bitter sip from his bottle and shrugs. "Put it on the table and we'll find out."

The answer is mostly wine, no huge surprises there. But there are also two ludicrously fragile-looking glasses (Dean pours a healthy serving of something unpronounceably Martian to each one), a variety of cheeses, and a boxed selection of 'Preserves from the Finest Fruits of the Galaxy'. It makes Dean wonder aloud, "D'you think they've got Gliese lizard-berries in here? They were starting to grow on me."

"It's from the Earthside station terminal," Benny says lazily, leaning back against the cushions. "The most exotic thing is probably mango."

The wine goes down a little too easy, as does the rest of his beer, and then Dean finishes the vodka on his own and Benny confiscates the whiskey in retaliation. He doesn't say a word about Andrea, and Dean doesn't ask. Benny finds he's grateful— for the alcohol, the company, the distraction. Watching Dean tear open the pointlessly fussy basket and its annoyingly delicate accessories feels somehow therapeutic. The man himself is clearly happy as a hog at the trough, chin smeared with jam and the basket's contents scattered around him like so much confetti, and Benny doesn't feel quite so stupid for buying it now.

Somewhere about halfway through the whiskey Benny finds himself just staring at Dean, who's sitting on the floor next to the coffeetable, licking the last of the strawberry-fig-whatever off his fingers. "What?" he says, catching Benny's eye. "I couldn't find a knife."

"I don't care," Benny says, shaking his head. It's not that. "I just…"

The thing is, ship's quarters are small. Claustrophobically small, for those who aren't used to it. Even the officers live on top of each other in most berths. Benny's been in every kind of tight space with Dean—cockpits, cargo, mess, stations, bunks— and having this much unfilled space between them feels unnatural. Hell, the size of the suite itself is unnatural, high ceilings and wide open rooms the virtual antithesis of ship corridors.

"Man, being down here is fucking weird," Dean says, echoing Benny's thoughts. He's looking out the wall that's all window, at the lit-up skyline and the dime-sized spacestation hanging just to the right of the moon. "I passed my pysch eval just fine, no problems with feeling like I'll fall into the sky or whatever, but I just— it makes me nervous. I keep looking for the harnesses, you know?"

"That's why the first night back's for getting shitfaced," Benny says sagely, sinking deeper into soft, soft sofaback. "You black out, wake up, and by then you're used to it."

"Is that your medical prescription, doctor?" Dean snickers, and tries to take a swig from the empty vodka bottle. "Shit, did I finish this?"

Benny sees an opening and takes it. "There's whiskey in it if you sit up here with me," he says swishing the bottle for emphasis.

"Hell yeah," Dean says with a grin, and jumps him.

"There's no fucking whiskey for anyone if you make me spill it," Benny says, but he's laughing; he damn near gets a knee to the crotch and might chip a tooth on Dean's cheekbone, but then Dean's sprawled all over him, solid and real. He settles in with a wiggle, draped sideways over Benny's lap. He's heavy and he smells like sweat and smoke and booze, throwing one arm around Benny's shoulders and nipping the whiskey out of his grip with the other. He takes a long slug and swallows hard, aiming a shit-eating smirk at Benny from inches away.

It's somehow exactly what Benny needed.

"I'm getting your ass tattooed if you pass out on me," Benny warns him, hand gripping his hip to hold him in place.

"All I ask is that there are no monkeys," Dean says solemnly, then lapses into the same shitfaced giggling he was embarrassing himself with either.

The bottle drains itself slowly, then all at once, and Benny's looking up at the spinning ceiling— some kind of fancy plaster molding, Jesus, it looks like someone painted some grapes white and just threw them up there. Rich people, he thinks in disgust.

Outside, the skyline is alive and riotous with fireworks, a series of hollow rolling booms shaking the glass in the windows, rattling the wineglasses and the empty bottles on the table.

"Might be time to call it a night, brother," he says into Dean's hair, rubbing a hand up his back.

"Naw, man, I'm fine," Dean slurs against Benny's ear, arms and a leg wrapped around him, head lying limp on his shoulder.

Benny rolls his eyes. "Sure you are. Let's just—"

"Don' know how she coulda dumped you, man," Dean mumbles, apparently following a completely different conversation. "Your hugs're fuckin' famous. Cas's gonna be so jealous."

"Thought it was my dick that was famous," Benny yawns, stretching under Dean's weight.

He says it jokingly, but Dean nods along like he's made a fair point. "That too," he agrees peaceably. "Not like you ever let us use it, but we got eyes."

Benny blinks, willing the room to come into focus. "You… wanted to use my…?"

"Like a pogo stick," Dean sighs, tucking himself in closer. "You're just so damn _big_. Thick. Mmm, I used to think about it, how you'd feel fucking into me, how you'd fill me up until I couldn't _take_ any more. How it'd hurt so good_—_"

"You… what?" Benny says faintly.

"Too bad you had a girl," Dean rambles on, breath warming the skin just under Benny's jaw. "What a fucking shame, all that going to waste. Think you gave Balth'zar a complex, but that smug fuck and his tiny dong deserve it."

"What?" Benny says again. There's something important happening here, some realization that's just waiting to dawn on him, but for the life of him he can't figure out what it is.

"Benny," Dean says, head weaving upwards until he can squint blearily into Benny's face. "Benny, Imma pass out now, 'kay?"

"Wait," Benny says, because he's this close, _this close_—

"Nuh-uh," Dean says muzzily, dropping his head back down. "Sleep now."

And Benny means to protest some more, because he's got a glimmer of an idea now and damn it, why did he drink all that shit, why did he let _Dean—_

* * *

Benny wakes up braced for a blow.

It takes a while to hit him, because the sun is in his eyes and his mouth tastes like the ass-end of a lizard-berry— probably the most disgusting fruit in the known universe. How the hell can Dean stand those things? Boy must have a stomach made of titanium.

That thought leads to another, which leads to Benny bolting upright on the couch and Dean's stinking carcass rolling right off of him, hitting the floor with a dull thud.

"_Motherfucker_," he moans, curling into a tight ball.

"Get up," Benny says, and hauls him to his feet by the arms when he doesn't move fast enough.

"Wha? Oh, Jesus, my fucking head," Dean groans, stumbling as Benny drags him towards the _en suite_. "Fucking hell, man, I'm not hearing any Reveille here, what do you think you're—?"

The next words are lost to a full-blooded scream as Benny yanks the ridiculously luxurious shower's door open, shoves Dean inside, and turns on the water.

"_I'm going to f-fucking murder you!" _

"Tell me when it warms up," Benny says, and grabs two wrapped toothbrushes and the toothpaste from beside the sink.

Dean throws a punch when Benny crowds into the glass-walled shower with him, but it's a weak effort and he takes the toothbrush when Benny brandishes it at him, yanking it out of his hand with a dark glower.

"Ah ha' goo," he growls, shooting Benny looks that promise dire retribution as he scrubs wrathfully at his teeth.

"Hurry it up, _cher,_" Benny says around his own toothbrush.

Benny's done with his teeth and body in two minutes flat, exactly as much time as they have hot water back on the ship, but Dean's still slowly brushing, eyes sliding closed and his forehead coming to rest on the slick tile wall. Benny decides to start on Dean's hair while he's waiting.

"_Fucking—" _Dean spits white foam everywhere, reaching up to bat Benny's hands away.

Benny steps back, but only for a minute, and when he returns it's with a bar of soap shaped like a blooming rose. Dean jumps when Benny's hands land on his back, muscles twitching under his fingers like a startled horse's. He gives Benny a surprised, wary look, and Benny leans in, drags his mouth up the slick ridge of muscle from the ball of Dean's shoulder to behind his ear.

"_Hurry it up_," he repeats, huskily.

"Oh," Dean says, and Benny bites him, water blunting the catch and drag of his teeth in tender skin. _"Oh, God."_

Benny reaches past him to grab the shampoo and smacks it against Dean's chest, holding it there until Dean takes it with clumsy fingers. Benny rewards him with another bite, this one in the meat of his neck, and Dean melts against him, head tipping back to rest on Benny's shoulder.

"Hair," Benny reminds him with a tap to the temple, and Dean obediently fumbles the bottle up until something herby and floral is dripping down his skull.

Benny's soapy hands linger over the sharp cut of Dean's collarbone, the long line of his throat that only gets longer when Dean gives a purring moan and arches into it, letting Benny's fingers rub up over his pulse, down his jugular. His breath stutters out on a gasp when Benny smoothes his hands over peaked nipples, down his stomach to slip between tensed thighs, unhesitating and thorough. The soap makes every movement a near-frictionless glide, and Dean's voice hitches as Benny's fingernails scrape lightly through his pubic hair.

"_Shampoo_, Dean. I know you know how to use it," Benny drawls, and when Dean finally gets his arms up Benny kneels down to wash his legs.

"What—" Dean says, and shudders as Benny runs his hands over knees and calves, back up to palm his ass with easy possessiveness.

"You almost done?" Benny asks, words hot against the small of Dean's back.

"_Fuck_ yes_,"_ Dean says, and ducks his head under the water for a final rinse.

Benny has to nudge Dean out of the shower like a dog herding sheep, and when there's enough room Dean tries to turn to face him. "Okay," he says, soft and a little unsteady, "not that I'm objecting, you understand, I'd just like to know what in the ever-loving hell—"

Benny bends at the knees and heaves him into a fireman's carry with a single twist of his body, and Dean yelps. "Damn it, Benny!"

"Hold still, you heavy sumbitch," Benny grunts, moving to the bedroom.

Once they're in reach, Benny chucks him in the general direction of the wide, welcoming mattress, piled high with puffy cloud-like pillows and furr-soft sheets. Dean lands with a bounce and a few choice curses, propping himself up on an elbow to scowl at Benny. "God-fucking-damn-it, Benny, the manhandling is completely unnecessary—"

"Shut up," Benny says patiently, pushing him back into the sheets. Dean's still dripping from the shower, sleek against the stark white of the bed. A startlingly vivid flush is rising in his cheeks, and Benny's eyes catch on his lips, on the way his tongue darts out to wet them.

When their eyes connect again, whatever Dean sees in Benny's makes him shiver.

"_Benny_," he gets out, and the word falters into silence against Benny's tongue, curling in to meet Dean's just as Dean's body rolls up to meet his, legs drawing in to frame his hips, arms around his neck.

When Benny lifts his head, Dean's drops weakly back against the pillows, eyes heavy-lidded and a slow smile curving reddened lips. "Does this mean," he pants, "that we could have been fucking our _entire tour?"_

"We'll fuck twice as much on the next one," Benny promises, dipping back down for another kiss.

Dean evades him and starts wiggling his way down the bed, rucking up the comforter as he goes.

"Sorry, buddy, I know you're a romantic at heart," he says, eyes still on Benny's, grin absolutely filthy pressed against Benny's belly. "But there's something else I've been meaning to get my mouth on."


End file.
